Reason

62. The distinction of reason (logical distinction).

The distinction of reason is that between:

• a substance and
• some one of its attributes

Without its attributes, it is impossible for us to have a distinct conception of the substance itself.

The distinction of reason can also be between two such attributes of a common substance.

• The one of which we essay to think without the other.

This distinction is manifest from our inability to form a clear and distinct idea of such substance, if we separate from it such attribute; or to have a clear perception of the one of two such attributes if we separate it from the other. For example, because any substance which ceases to endure ceases also to exist, duration is not distinct from substance except in thought (RATIONE).

In general, all the modes of thinking which we consider as in objects differ only in thought, as well from the objects of which they are thought as from each other in a common object.

It occurs, indeed, to me that I have elsewhere classed this kind of distinction with the modal (viz., towards the end of the Reply to the First Objections to the Meditations on the First Philosophy).

But there it was only necessary to treat of these distinctions generally, and it was sufficient for my purpose at that time simply to distinguish both of them from the real.

63. How thought and extension [metaphysical space] may be distinctly known, as constituting, the one the nature of mind, the other that of body.

Thought and extension [metaphysical space] may be regarded as constituting the natures of intelligent and corporeal substance.

They must not be otherwise conceived than as the thinking and extended substances themselves, that is, as mind and body, which in this way are conceived with the greatest clearness and distinctness.

Moreover, we more easily conceive extended or thinking substance than substance by itself, or with the omission of its thinking or extension.

There is some difficulty in abstracting the notion of substance from the notions of thinking and extension, which, in truth, are only diverse in thought itself (i.e., logically different).

A concept is not more distinct because it comprehends fewer properties, but because we accurately distinguish what is comprehended in it from all other notions.

64. How these may likewise be distinctly conceived as modes of substance.

Thought and extension [metaphysical space] may be also considered as modes of substance.

This is in as far as the same mind may have many different thoughts, and the same body, with its size unchanged, may be extended in several diverse ways.

In one time, its body might be more in length and less in width or depth. At another time,it might be more in breadth and less in length.

They are modally distinguished from substance, and can be conceived not less clearly and distinctly, provided they be not regarded as substances or things separated from others, but simply as modes of things.

For by regarding them as in the substances of which they are the modes, we distinguish them from these substances, and take them for what in truth they are: whereas, on the other hand, if we wish to consider them apart from the substances in which they are, we should by this itself regard them as self-subsisting things, and thus confound the ideas of mode and substance.

65. How we may likewise know their modes

The diverse modes of thought are intellection, imagination, recollection, volition, etc.

The diverse modes of extension, or those that belong to extension, are all shapes, the location of parts and their motions

We can best understand these modes if we consider them simply as modes of the things as they are.

66. How our sensations, affections, and appetites may be clearly known, although we are frequently wrong in our judgments regarding them.

We have perceptions of sensations, affections, and appetites, in our minds.

We may have a clear knowledge of these if we focus on their content at the current moment.

There is, however, great difficulty in observing this, at least in respect of sensations.

This is because we have all, from our youth, judged that:

• all the things we perceived by our senses had an existence beyond our thought
• those things were entirely similar to our sensations of them

For example, when we saw a colour, we thought we saw something outside of us. That something was then totally similar to our idea of that colour that we saw.

We then seemed to see this so clearly and distinctly that we esteemed it (i.e., the externality of the colour) certain and indubitable.

67. We are frequently deceived in our judgments regarding pain itself.

The same prejudice has place in all our other sensations, even in those of titillation and pain.

We do not believe that that there are outside of us that resemble titillation and pain.

Yet we consider these sensations as being in the hand, or foot, or some other part of our body, and not being in the mind or the perception alone.

There is no reason, however, to constrain us to believe that the pain, for example, which we feel, as it were, in the foot is something out of the mind existing in the foot, or that the light which we see, as it were, in the sun exists in the sun as it is in us.

Both these beliefs are prejudices of our early years, as will clearly appear in the sequel.

68. How in these things what we clearly conceive is to be distinguished from possibly wrong things.

We have an idea of what pain or color is, as effects, because we ourselves feel pain or see colors.

But when are asked to explain what pain or colors in their true nature beyond what we experience in our minds, we totally cannot explain them.

When someone tells us that he sees colour or feels pain in his leg, we actually absolutely no knowledge of it.

This is because we cannot feel the pain or see the color exactly as he can.

[We can look at the same object and get the same injury to our leg, but we have no idea whether it is exactly the same as the color or pain that he perceived.]

So the first step to distinguish what is clear in our sensations from what is obscure, we have to remember that what others perceive might be different from what we perceive.

69. Magnitude, figure, etc., are known far differently from colour, pain, etc.

Philosophers fancy other kinds of motion. They have rendered the nature of motion less intelligible to themselves.

These will be more manifest especially if we consider that size in the body perceived, shape, motion (at least local), the situation of parts, duration, number, and those other properties which we clearly perceive in all bodies, are known by us in a way altogether different from that in which we know what colour is in the same body, or pain, smell, taste, or any other of those properties which I have said above must be referred to the senses.

When we see a body, we are not less assured of its existence from its appearing figured than from its appearing coloured,we yet know with far greater clearness its property of figure than its colour.

70. We judge of sensible things in 2 ways:

1. A way which we avoid error
2. A way which we fall into error

Perceiving colours in objects is really equivalent to saying we perceive something in objects and are yet ignorant of what it is, except the sensation of colours which give us a highly vivid and clear sensation.

There is, however, a large diversity in our manner of judging.

When we know that there is something unknown in objects.

But when we think we see colours in objects, we are really ignorant of what colour is.

We are unable to think of any resemblance between the colour in objects, and the colour that we see.

This makes us glide into the error of thinking that the colour that we see is the colour in objects.